Lāhainā resident Busaba Yip couldn't believe the Wo Hing Temple Museum and Cookhouse was gone.
The historic museum on Front Street that long celebrated Chinese culture burned down during the Aug. 8 wildfires.
“I let my tears come in from the deepest of my heart, and I realized how much I love the work I’m doing at the Wo Hing,” she said.
Yip, a cultural director and docent at the museum, has been educating visitors about Chinese history in Lāhainā for more than 20 years.
“Through the years, I learned a lot,” she said. “The visitors inspired me. They came and asked many questions that opened the gate for me to learn.”
The Chinese community has a long history on Maui. They arrived on merchant ships and helped build tunnels and irrigation systems in the mountains. In addition, they worked on sugar cane plantations.
The Wo Hing Society, a Chinese group in Lāhainā, built a hall bearing its name in West Maui in the early 1900s. It was a community hub for Chinese immigrants in Lāhainā to preserve their cultural identity and language and celebrate festivities.
Wo Hing is a Cantonese dialect. “Wo” means peace and harmony, and “Hing” means prosperity.
The Wo Hing Society, throughout the years, has celebrated the Chinese Lunar New Year, the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, and other celebrations.
Yip said the society also built a cookhouse as a precaution to prevent the risk of fire to the main Wo Hing Temple. The society converted it into a mini theater.
“The society was formed to nurture the ex-pat community, providing social contracts, support in times of crisis, and housing for retired workers,” according to the Lahaina Restoration Foundation. “It also supported the revolutionary activities of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, renowned as the father of modern China and first provisional president of the Republic of China.”
When the society hall was converted into a museum in 1984, it was overcome with termites. So, the Lahaina Restoration Foundation worked with the Wo Hing Society to restore the two-story building to its former structure.
The two-story building on Front Street was a Victorian-style structure with wrap-around balconies on both floors. The first floor was a museum, and the second was a temple.
Yip said the Lahaina Restoration Foundation and the Wo Hing Society discovered a collection of the society’s old documents in 1983. She added that the work to preserve those records officially started in 1999.
The fire burned many of the artifacts in the temple museum, but some may be salvageable.
“That is our hope,” Yip said. “So in the long term and short term, we can do small things. With our Wo Hing research, we continue with the contribution of our friends who work with Microsoft. So the 2,000 pieces of records, even the physical being, some burned during the fire, but a lot of them survived.”
Since Wo Hing has burned down, only The Kwock Hing Society in Kula still stands on Maui.
Discussions are underway to rebuild the temple museum. The Wo Hing Society is working on creating a website and asking for donations.
“We survived the fire because we still have work to do,” Yip said. “So we have to continue our journey no matter how long it will be to bring back what it used to be. It may not be the same. But with hope, there will be a better future in sharing our story and honoring our history.”
